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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28056435">It Began With Owl Orders</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameChiplin/pseuds/DameChiplin'>DameChiplin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, You've Got Mail (1998)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Banter, Christmas, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Epistolary, F/M, Flourish and Blotts, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Kinda, Literary References &amp; Allusions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:40:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,008</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28056435</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameChiplin/pseuds/DameChiplin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In this You’ve Got Mail inspired Christmas fic, Hermione Granger has taken over Flourish and Blotts after the war. An unlikely owl order turns into a year long correspondence. The problem is, Hermione’s pretty sure she hates who she thinks it is.</p><p>--</p><p>Hermione paused and shook her head. “It’s not Neville. Besides Neville’s married to Hannah.”</p><p>Padma did a turn about face to put herself in front of Hermione. “And why would that matter? Hermione Granger, have you been holding out on me? Are these love letters?”</p><p>Hermione said, “They are not love letters!” but she blushed bright red. Padma ducked her head down to catch Hermione’s eyes, and Hermione huffed. “Really we just discuss books.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>71</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This year I've been rewatching Gilmore Girls and Nora Ephron movies and all the weightless fare I can take to balance out the mayhem of 2020. Here is the sweet little Christmas fic that started as a playful exercise after watching You've Got Mail and turned into me researching poetry late into the night and creating, dare I say it, plot? (Kinda.) It's gonna be short, sweet, and have way too many book references cause I gotta use that English degree somehow.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> Flourish and Blotts, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I’m looking for a copy of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Do you carry it? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Cycnus Swan </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Via Prometheus </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Hermione looked up from the note, eyed the large eagle owl at her office window who blinked back. While she was familiar with most of the owls who came by with owl orders, this owl was bigger and it’s order odder than she’d ever received. Since she had taken over Flourish and Blotts a year ago, she’d begun stocking a small supply of Muggle classics but they had been quietly collecting dust next to the wizard fiction.</p><p>“Prometheus?” she asked and the owl cocked its head at her expectantly. “Kinda morbid, eh?”</p><p>“Are you talking to an owl again?” Padma Patil asked.</p><p>Hermione swung her head to look at where Padma was leaning on her office doorframe, arms crossed across her chest. “He’s an eagle owl named after Prometheus. Bit dark don’t you think?”</p><p>Padma made a face, nose wrinkling on her pretty face. “Bit punny. Very wizardly of them.”</p><p>“And they want a Muggle book.”</p><p>“I take it back. Not wizardly at all,” Padma said. She straightened, slapped her hand on the door. “Right, well, I’m going to go finish opening up. New arrivals are ready to go out.”</p><p>“Be right there!” Hermione called, pulling out a fresh piece of parchment, quickly scribbling her response.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Mssr. Swan, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yes, we do! We have a single copy in stock for 5 galleons. Would you like me to charge a Gringotts account?  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> HG </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Flourish and Blotts </em>
</p><p> </p><p>It was only an hour later when Prometheus the eagle owl pecked at the bell at the front door to the shop, a heavy sack clutched between its talons, and a small note that just read, “<em> For present and future purchases. CS </em>.”</p><p>“How odd,” Hermione murmured. </p><p>“Hm?” Padma hummed as she flicked her wand and sorted their new arrivals onto the display tables. A few customers were browsing, a happy sort of browse fitting a lazy late morning. When Prometheus swiveled his horned head towards a curious shopper, they squealed and trotted away to the safety of the herbology section.</p><p>Hermione tutted, reached into her shop apron and offered Prometheus a treat to keep him busy. “This Muggle book order. They sent a sack of at least fifty galleons rather than provide a Gringotts charge account.”</p><p>Padma glanced over then and let out a low whistle at the large sack sagging open to reveal it’s golden bounty. “Bit ostentatious, that.”</p><p>Hermione wrapped Frankenstein in paper and twine, slipping a note back inside the first pages. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Thank you for your order! Your money will be kept on file. I hope you enjoy Frankenstein! It is a personal favorite of mine. I look forward to your future orders. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> HG </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Flourish and Blotts </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Within a week the eagle owl was back. It preened itself on her small owl’s stand, while Gertrude the shop owl looked quite put out, huddled in the back of her cage to accommodate the eagle owl’s wingspan.</p><p> </p><p>The note was simple. <em> The Witches by Roald Dahl. Thank you, CS. </em></p><p> </p><p>Hermione hesitated. While she had a few Muggle classics in stock, that did not include children’s literature, let alone one where witches were portrayed murdering children.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Dear CS, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> We currently do not stock The Witches by Roald Dahl. Did you like Frankenstein? If so may I recommend The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> HG </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Flourish and Blotts </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <em> Frankenstein isn’t the first man to find his child ugly, but may be the first to select each feature and then blame the child for it. I found the Creature a much more sympathetic character. Please send The Picture of Dorian Gray. CS. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Fun fact! There’s rumor that Mary Shelley got the title from Frankenstein Castle where alchemist Johann Konrad Dippel experimented with human bodies. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I’ve included a copy of Dorian Gray. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for your order. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> HG </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Flourish and Blotts </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Hermione was balancing the books after closing when Prometheus scratched at her office window, gave a shrill cry and dropped a single note on her desk. In the moonlight, the owl looked like a challenge.</p><p>The note read, <em> What a profoundly terrifying fun fact. CS. </em>Hermione grinned and bit her lip, a curious thrill shooting through her.</p><p>Before she could overthink it, she penned a reply. <em> Facts that don’t give you gooseflesh aren’t nearly as interesting. Let me know what you think of Dorian Gray. HG. </em></p><p>His owl found her that Saturday afternoon on her walk home from visiting with Ginny who was very bored in between Quidditch matches. Prometheus dropped a small scroll into her hands. He fluttered onto her shoulder with fast familiarity and began to chew on her hair as she read.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.” This Wilde fellow might be onto something. I’ve never met a man who didn’t use the word experience to cover up a few bedfellows they regretted. CS. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Hermione’s laugh was a sharp bark, and she glanced around embarrassed as she hurriedly rolled it up again and stuffed it in her pocket. But Prometheus stayed latched on her shoulder so she sighed, said, “Well come along then,” and took him home with her where he could chaperone her writing and toe the line between friend and foe with Crookshanks.</p><p> </p><p>She wrote,<em> I always hated that line. To me it reads like an excuse to not recognize your mistakes and live blind in the same cycle. There’s power in seeing a mistake and naming it. When one has a diagnosis, they can treat it better. HG. </em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Spoken like a true moralist. I can name my mistakes, and often revisit them when sleep escapes me. Experience is a pretty word cowards use to comfort themselves. CS. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Hermione frowned and wrote, <em> Leave the self flagellation to Christendom, and you’ll be the better for it. HG </em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I prefer to allow others the honor. CS. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Hermione blushed as she read, curled up in her armchair and teacup hovering at her lips. Perhaps she had been single too long if she was taking a comment about monks whipping themselves as flirting. And perhaps too long since she had spent the majority of her Saturday in owl correspondence with a customer whose wry humor startled her. </p><p>Quickly she summoned a parchment and a self-inking quill.</p><p>As the months passed their exchanges became increasingly conversational and equally evasive. With each letter Prometheus the eagle owl brought, Hermione’s heart stuttered in excitement. Prometheus came to make himself quite comfortable on Gertrude’s perch when he had no other deliveries, much to her consternation, as Hermione read Cycnus’s letter and hurried to write back. When an actual customer in the shop required her attention, she felt impatient to get back to their correspondence rather than help a needy fan locate Gilderoy Lockhart’s many memoirs.</p><p>Cycnus Swan continued to order the largest variety of topics she’d ever seen, all Muggle subjects. In the same order that he requested the box set of Chronicles of Narnia (<em> Turkish delight sounds filthy if I may say so myself </em> ), he also ordered Diana: A True Story In Her Own Words by Andrew Morton ( <em> Sorely disappointed in the photographs. Though I do not need to see her wedding dress in action to ascertain that it was horrid. I remain intrigued by the concept of a revenge dress. </em>). </p><p>“That owl should pay rent,” Padma grumbled, watching Prometheus nibble on the garland she had just spelled across the shop counter. Padma had quickly learned he was not interested in her attentions when he nipped at her hand for daring to try to pet him.</p><p>“His owner has spent at least a hundred galleons. At this rate, he already does,” Hermione said, and Padma frowned. </p><p>“What did you say his name was?”</p><p>“Cycnus Swan.”</p><p>Padma frowned even harder. “I’ve never heard of a Cycnus Swan.”</p><p>“No one seems to. He feels younger, has made vague references to Hogwarts, but I, ah, I think he’s a Pureblood.”</p><p>“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Padma teased.</p><p>“No, it’s not necessarily bad,” Hermione said as she spelled a blue spruce Christmas tree into the shop window. “It’s just, his name is a constellation, and that’s a signature Black family trait.”</p><p>“It’s no secret that you’re the owner of the shop now. If that were such an issue, he’d take his business elsewhere rather than pouring so many galleons into this place that we can finally afford to get Blotts's ghoul in the basement dealt with.” </p><p>Padma heaved a box onto the counter and Hermione eyed it with suspicion. “A new Parvarti’s Tea and Tonics shipment. Charismatic Chamomile, I believe. More likely to put your nan to sleep than make her charming,” she drawled. Hermione grinned and helped Padma unload the tea tins next to Parvarti’s other offerings, Ginger Genius and Embody-Me Black Tea. “Besides,” Padma began again. “He’s definitely a Pureblood and a wealthy one at that. I’ve never met a Pureblood with an ostentatious bird like that who wasn’t from the Sacred Twenty-Eight.”</p><p>Hermione frowned.</p><p>His comments on On the Various Contrivances By Which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised By Insects, and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing by Charles Darwin (<em> What an absurdly long title. My own family could’ve done with some outbreeding if my fourth cousin removed’s extra thumb is any evidence. </em>) only seemed to encourage her suspicions he was Pureblood. </p><p>“Maybe it’s Lockhart writing from St. Mungo’s,” Padma teased.</p><p>Hermione harrumphed and waved her wand to send a trail of ornaments along the second floor handrail. “If that was the case, it would just be him ordering his own books.”</p><p>“Slughorn then.”</p><p>“Oh do be serious, Padma!” Hermione scolded even as a grin tugged at the corner of her mouth.</p><p>Padma raised her hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. Hm, what about Neville?”</p><p>“Neville Longbottom?” Hermione asked, brow furrowed as she began to organize the ornaments in front of her by color.</p><p>“Yes, sweet, mandrake cuddling Neville.”</p><p>Hermione paused and shook her head. “It’s not Neville. Besides Neville’s married to Hannah.”</p><p>Padma did a turn about face to put herself in front of Hermione. “And why would that matter? Hermione Granger, have you been holding out on me? Are these love letters?”</p><p>Hermione said, “They are not love letters!” but she blushed bright red as she created a subcategory for classic baubles versus figural ornaments. Padma ducked her head down to catch Hermione’s eyes and Hermione huffed. “Really we just discuss books.”</p><p>“That owl has been here nearly every other day for almost a year now.”</p><p>“Read them for yourself if you like!” Hermione exclaimed, clenching a pixie ornament in her fist.</p><p>“Don’t mind if I do!” And Padma was off, stomping into Hermione’s office with her hot on her heels. “Ah! Here’s one, right on top, now lets see.” Hermione hovered in the doorway, crossing her arms over her chest and glancing out to make sure no customer was trying to make off with a copy of Lust, Love, and Lascivious Potions for the Lonely. “<em>Dostoevesky could’ve done with an actually capable editor to rein in how often he reminds us that Raskolnikov is an absolute stunner of a man. I hope when I die they take the time in my obituary to establish that not only was I a horrible man who kicked house-elves and stole chocolate frogs from children, I was also horribly handsome. </em>What on earth does any of this mean?”</p><p>“He’s been reading Crime and Punishment.” At Padma’s look, Hermione sighed, waved a dismissive hand in the air. “It’s a Russian muggle book about guilt and supremacy I thought he would find interesting. But as you can see, not romantic at all.”</p><p>“He may not be writing a poem about your eyes, but in Hermione language this might as well be,” Padma mused.</p><p>Hermione put her hands on her waist and shrugged. “Ron never read any of the books I recommended.”</p><p>“Ron Weasley is barely literate.” Hermione made a face at Padma who rolled her eyes at her. “I know, I know, he’s your friend, it never would’ve worked anyway. Hooking up with Lavender not even twenty four hours after your breakup said that clearly enough didn’t it.”</p><p>But when Padma looked at Hermione again, there was something drawn about her expression, mouth pinched. “Oh no, oh Hermione, I’m sorry-” but Hermione was already in action, untying the apron from her waist.</p><p>“Can you watch the shop? I’m just gonna pop over to Slug and Jigger’s Apothecary and pick up a few supplies. You need anything? You’ll be alright here I’m sure. It’s never busy on a Wednesday morning anyways. I’ll be right back.”</p><p>And with that Hermione had slung her winter cloak over her shoulders and was out into the cold snow. She reveled in the sting of it, the bite of frost at her cheeks pinching her a bit more awake and a touch further from feeling too sorry for herself. Tears had started to crowd her eyes and only a few slipped past before she quickly rubbed them away with her mittens. The last thing she needed was a headline about Hermione Granger crying in the street and on a weekday morning no less.</p><p>Diagon Alley was a pretty picture, all fresh snow crunching under her feet and Christmas decorations winking from shop gables. Slug and Jigger’s Apothecary was an easy walk and it was not long before she saw the purple framed windows. With a deep breath, she slipped back into her practiced composure and opened the door, comforted by the sweet tinkle of the shop bell and the sudden aroma of herbs. All the different glass jars cast shimmers across the shop, making it so lovely on a late winter morning that she could almost forget that there was a special section dedicated to pus.</p><p>The shop owner, Slug Salut, was an old wizard with a hunched back notorious for leaving the counter to go help another customer mid transaction. Hermione got in line just in time to see Slug lift his head, tut, and begin his slow slide away. The man in front of her had his hands on the counter and his head hanging low as he sighed, and Hermione’s blood ran cold. Hermione hated that she recognized Draco Malfoy by his sigh, fast and through gritted teeth, usually followed by some sort of tantrum. But he simply straightened and sat back on his heels to wait, one hand fiddling with his supplies on the counter. </p><p>Hermione clicked her tongue disapprovingly and his golden head whipped towards hers so fast she took a step back. Merlin, he was tall. Something flickered in his eyes when he saw her, but he stiffened like a marble statue, all smooth carved angles and pale pitted eyes. He had rarely been seen in public in the three years since graduation, like a ghost people whispered about haunting the alleyways.</p><p>She clutched the mandrake root in her hand close to her chest, but looked at his supplies again. She shook her head, and said, “Draught of Peace is highly addictive, and dangerous if brewed incorrectly. A sleeping draught requires much simpler ingredients and is easier to brew.”</p><p>He inclined his head towards her, pursed his thin lips. “Do you work here?”</p><p>Hermione bristled, her magic crackling at her ears. “No, I don’t.”</p><p>“Did I ask for your help?”</p><p>“Well, ah, I-”</p><p>“Making a Pepper Up Potion?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Come now, Granger, I know you heard me,” he drawled.</p><p>“Yes, not that it’s any of your business.”</p><p>“Says the woman who made a comment on my selection unsolicited.” Malfoy leaned on the counter, waved a hand at his currently abandoned purchases.</p><p>“I would argue the majority of what you’ve ever said has been unsolicited, Malfoy,” Hermione spat.</p><p>Malfoy took a deep breath and looked around the store for Slug, fingers tapping on the counter. He sighed again, so put upon, and said, “You need a bicorn horn, not a doe horn for Pepper Up.”</p><p>“I know that.”</p><p>His eyebrows raised, and he nodded at the doe’s horn clutched in her hand.</p><p>Hermione froze, mouth agape. “Oh blast.”</p><p>“You were one doe horn away from sneezing roots for a week.”</p><p>“Oh shut it,” she said, flaring hot with embarrassment and turning quickly away.</p><p>“I may be a horrible man, but I got an O in Potions, same as you,” he called after her. She skid to a stop, turning to look at him. But he was already turned away, Slug bowing over the till again. By the time she made it back to the line, he was gone, and Slug was off another slow crawl.</p><p>On her walk back, Hermione couldn’t shake the way he’d called himself a horrible man, the dark bags under his eyes of a man who slept little and the Draught of Peace ingredients. Dread weighed heavy in her belly, and as she climbed the steps back into Flourish and Blotts, it threatened to choke her. Padma looked up, face etched with concern. “Oh Hermione, I’m so sorry I brought it up, I didn’t mean to bring up such awful memories-” Hermione held up a hand to stop her, caught her wrist and dragged her away from the open door.</p><p>“Really Padma, I’m fine. Just trying not to make a big thing of these letters. Come now, we’ve still got a lot to do to prepare for Lupin’s talk.”</p><p>Padma searched her face, unconvinced, but nodded and spent the rest of the day trying to sneak concerned glances as Hermione became a frenzy of preparations and timetables scheduled down to ten minute increments.</p><p>When Prometheus scratched at her apartment window that night, Hermione startled. A spilled tea, mouth gaping, eyes widening kind of startle, the kind that had her hissing and mopping hot tea off the sensible sweater vest that Ginny had once threatened to burn. Prometheus looked unimpressed at her scrambling. She briefly considered leaving him outside, but curse her heart. Her gripe wasn’t with him. All he’d ever done was double her treat budget and provide Crookshanks with more exercise than he’d had in ages.</p><p>Her heart pounded in her chest as she rolled the scroll in one hand. She examined the scroll like a piece of evidence. A thin, off white parchment, edges neatly ripped, the same thin black ribbon tied in a bow keeping it rolled. Inside the same familiar writing, slim cursive at such a steep incline it seemed in danger of rolling off the page. And she felt almost certain she knew who had written it, stomaching twisting with revulsion, and heart squeezing with tenderness at the familiar writing.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Gilbert is a twat. CS. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Hermione huffed a laugh, and bit her lip. She picked up her quill, and wrote back.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Books Referenced:<br/>Frankenstein by Mary Shelley<br/>The Witches by Roald Dahl<br/>The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde<br/>Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis<br/>Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words by Andrew Morton<br/>Charles Darwin<br/>Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky<br/>Anne of Green Gables by Anne Montgomery</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter Two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Draco lets himself be dragged to Flourish and Blotts and regrets wearing his new shoes.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Honestly, I'm writing this to make myself laugh so if this humor works for more than just me, maybe I've got a shot at coming out of this year in one piece. Cheers.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Isn’t this a tidy little affair?” Draco drawled, lifting an eyebrow at the glass offered to him. He took a perfunctory sniff, sipped the wine. He felt underdressed in a dark cable knit sweater and slacks. The bumbling hipsters around were in similarly dark colors and knit but he missed his armor of suit jackets and wing tips.</p><p>Blaise rolled his eyes, sipped his own. “You weren’t complaining when you were staring down the shop owner like she was a fine scotch with tits.”</p><p>Draco lowered his eyes to his glass and drank. “I do love a good vintage.”</p><p>A charming little handbell rang across the room. He dared to look again to see the shop owner hanging off a ladder leaning against the towering stacks. She was waving her wand in the air with little flourishes that chimed across the room, just one kitten heeled foot resting on the rungs. A nubby cardigan was cinched around her waist with a dark belt over a wool skirt, her hair a riot of curls around her flushed cheeks. Hermione Granger had grown into her hair if possible, wearing her hair wild after years of trying to tame it. She glowed with the success of the night, cheeks pretty and pink. Or maybe it was the charmed candles floating over everyone’s heads, heavy cascades of wax suspended in air. Either way, Draco found himself distracted from his drink, and his hands began to sweat.</p><p>He hadn’t had a letter from her in a few days. After seeing her at Slug and Jigger’s, he’d felt as though he was about to rattle out of his skin, a snake ready to strike but aimless still. It was an odd sort of paranoia, this unreleased adrenaline. The way she had looked at him, the immediate contempt, then the slow tilt of her head as she considered him. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. It wasn’t until he had sat himself down that night and tucked a note into Prometheus’s talons that the vibration under his skin dulled to a gentle simmer.</p><p>
  <em> Gilbert is a twat. CS. </em>
</p><p>He had known it could be an incendiary comment, but he had craved the heat of her anger to remind him she’d still be there. So he had waited and paced in the cold study of Malfoy Manor, wearing a hole into the three hundred year old Persian carpet rug while his grandfather Abraxas’s portrait frowned at him in blatant annoyance. He’d spent nearly two years pacing up and down the halls of the Manor in his appointed and then self appointed house arrest and the family portraits were too accustomed to the tattoo of his loafers echoing through the empty mansion.</p><p>But then Prometheus had returned, a trim piece of parchment, waxed neatly closed. Inside in her cramped little writing, <em> Without Gilbert’s academic rivalry, I don’t believe Anne would have been challenged to her best work. He was an ass as most boys are, but at least he was changed when she broke that slate over his head. HG. </em>And his heart stuttered at the insinuation. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.</p><p>Draco had rushed to the desk and pulled the chair back with such a loud screech of chair legs on ancient mahogany flooring that his grandfather’s portrait scolded him with a, “Those floors cost five thousand galleons, and my grandfather’s third favorite dragon, boy!” but Draco ignored him and quickly scribbled his answer.</p><p>
  <em> I’d like to call you a bosom friend, but I’d worry you would think I’m objectifying you. CS. </em>
</p><p>But Prometheus had returned that night, talons empty and petulant as always. For three days Draco had waited, sending Prometheus on errands to pick up random orders, more self-inking quills, shoelaces, a chocolate frog that of course sported a card of Harry Potter looking unimpressed and smug, and a quick pointless letter to Blaise,<em> Remember when you tried to shave and instead you spelled your chin blue and we called you Blaise Bluebeard and no girl would talk to you for all of fifth year? </em>. Really anything to get Prometheus into Diagon Alley where she might see him and give him a letter and then maybe he could have peace. </p><p>Instead Blaise had responded. <em> If you’ve got time to send me notes at work, you have time to accompany me to a book event this Sunday. I’ll floo to yours at 8. Don’t wear your bloody formal shite. You look like a dementor in bespoked robes. Xoxo, B. </em></p><p>And now on Sunday night he found himself in Flourish and Blotts sweatered up like a damn beatnik, surrounded by the same old classmates he’d once conspired against, thinking about how pretty Hermione Granger looked dangling from a ladder, like a dancer in a music box, and he felt utterly, incredibly stupid. He clutched his wine against his chest like an ineffectual shield.</p><p>“Hello!” Hermione called, her wand pressed to the base of her throat to amplify her voice. “Thank you all for coming! It is Flourish and Blotts honor to host Remus Lupin on his book tour for his new memoir The Marauders. A toast to our honored guest! Thank you for sharing with us your words, your life, and your wisdom.”</p><p>A cheer rose from the room. Draco gestured his cup in the air, tossed back his wine like a shot of cheap vodka.</p><p>“Where’s the booze, Hermione!” a great call sounded from the floor. Draco looked over to see a gaggle of redheads. Must be the Weasleys. The last time he’d ever seen so many freckles in one room was at his graduation from Hogwarts. The identical twins already had that firewhiskey flush.</p><p>“Yeah Hermione! We’re parched! It’s awful dry in here!”</p><p>“We’re dehydrated!”</p><p>“Desiccated even!”</p><p>“Arid as the Mojave desert!”</p><p>“And we don’t even know where that is!”</p><p>With a flick of her wrist and a pointed glare, the boys’ mouths were crammed full with pastries. Harry Potter was laughing loudly. “HUSH! Remus has kindly offered to do a signing now in the magical memoir section. If you haven’t already, you can purchase a copy of The Marauders at the counter. Please help yourselves to mooncakes, pumpkin pasties, and more catered by our very own Honeydukes and to our bar for all your butterbeer, gigglewater, and elderflower wine needs! Cheers!”</p><p>Another even more raucous cheer went through the room. They were slipping each other gigglewater and giving great yawps, smacking each other on the back.</p><p>Draco’s nostrils flared at the family revelry. He turned back to Blaise. “Why are we here?”</p><p>“Did you not enjoy the talk?” Blaise asked, but his eyes rested on the youngest Weasley, the only girl and easily the prettiest of her siblings, even with that garish hair. Draco followed his gaze, rolling his eyes so far back in his head his neck cracked.</p><p>“Ah. Right. Of course. On that note,” he sneered, snatching Blaise’s drink from his hand and taking a large sip. A giggle tore out of his throat and his head turned to catch Blaise biting back a smile. “Gigglewater?! What are you, a thirteen year old girl? Where are you hiding your Witch Weekly? When did you start drinking Giggle-fucking-water?”</p><p>Blaise plucked his drink back out of Draco’s fingers. “It’s not one of your vintages. It’s not for sipping.” He shot it back, let out a yelp right in Draco’s face.</p><p>Draco snorted. “The Weaslette, gigglewater, and belching? Go flirt while I can still stomach the dust in this place.” Blaise slapped him on the back, and Draco waved a hand at him. “Go on! Go!”</p><p>As soon as Draco had sent Blaise away he regretted it. He would’ve hunched over to hide his blonde head if his damn childhood etiquette lessons hadn’t demanded perfect posture. After nights of being spelled straight to his dinner chair, desperately trying to bring a wobbling spoon of soup to his mouth, Draco had lost the ability to hunch. Hadn’t stopped him from being a weak willed boy under the thumb of a tyrant, but he made a pretty picture at dinner parties.</p><p>A tall island in a sea of old enemies, Draco meandered over to a spare table covered in stacks of The Marauders that was tucked against the wall. A sheepish moving portrait of Lupin sat next to them, arms crossed and fidgeting with the buttons on his coat sleeves. He idly flipped through a copy, pausing on a photo of a group of boys in their Hogwarts uniforms, waving, the Whomping Willow far in the background. One looked remarkably like if you took Harry Potter and stretched him vertically.</p><p>“What did you think of the talk?”</p><p>“Hm?” Draco looked up and there she was in that reasonable wool pencil skirt and that cloud of hair. This close she felt too tangible, unable to be comfortably flattened to words on a scrap of parchment. She was organizing cups on floating trays with one hand while her wand flitted through the air, sending the trays out among the crowd. </p><p>“Did you enjoy the talk?” she rephrased. He glanced back up, met her honey brown eyes. She watched him carefully, how he quickly shut the book on the waving friends, tapping the cover with his long fingers. Again, he felt aware of his posture and sought to somehow improve it under her critical gaze.</p><p>“It was...educational,” he said simply.</p><p>“Oh?” she prompted, pouring elderflower wine into his open glass. He thanked her with a quick nod. “And what did you learn?”</p><p>She was being too clinical. He sighed, lifted the cup to gesture around him. “I learned you can cram three hundred people into a building with a two hundred occupancy limit by getting rid of the section on Divination.”</p><p>She tried to hide a smile, ducking her head to continue pouring wine into glasses on the table. “Don’t you worry, it’ll be back by tomorrow along with Tea Leaf Readings on every third Thursday.”</p><p>“Thank, Merlin. How else would I know when to wear my best robes?” Draco drawled, thankful for the cup in his hand to occupy them.</p><p>“Let’s be honest, patrons like you keep my coffers filled so I can host soirees like this.”</p><p>“Yes because war heroes rarely merit a crowd.”</p><p>“You’d be surprised what profit Tea Leaf Readings can bring in.”</p><p>“What section do you hide then?”</p><p>Again a grin. “History. I never thought those interested in orbs would pay attention to what came before them.”</p><p>“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”</p><p>“Yes, as we have already seen.”</p><p>Draco flinched, his fingers tapping faster on the hardcover of The Marauders where a young Sirius Black shook a fist at him.</p><p>“I’m surprised you know Santayana,” she said slowly.</p><p>“Yes well I do read. I’m surprised you even sell books on Divination. Never thought you’d compromise your Gryffindor values for a quick galleon.”</p><p>“It’s not a matter of old house values,” she said sharply, shoving an empty bottle of butterbeer in with the trash, shatterproof, meltproof glass clinking together. “It’s about exposure to knowledge with which to better educate yourself on the fallacies of looking for actual shapes in the clouds. One doesn’t provide one side of an argument without knowing the latter.”</p><p>“Do you sell Gilderoy Lockhart’s books too?”</p><p>She manually pulled out a cork, a hollow thunk. “Yes I do. In the memory magic section.” She sniffed and a laugh gurgled out of his throat. If it weren’t for the red stain he knew was on his lips, he might’ve thought he still had Blaise’s gigglewater. She looked up at his laugh, eyes wide, but he looked away rather than hold her gaze. The last time they had both been in this building and Gilderoy Lockhart was mentioned, his father was trying to slip a horcrux into her bag. He felt cold sweep over him, and he drank the rest of his wine quickly.</p><p>“How much for the book?” he said quickly.</p><p>“You...want a copy?” Hermione brow furrowed and she glanced at him quickly before turning back to refresh another try of butterbeer.</p><p>“Why else would I be asking? How much for the damn book?”</p><p>She surreptitiously glanced at the sign next Lupin’s portrait loudly advertising the price, and said “Five galleons,” but he was already pulling the coins from his pocket with a jangle, dropping them in his old wine cup. She grimaced, murmuring a quick <em> evanesco </em> before placing them in her till.</p><p>“You’re awful good at deflecting,” she said, watching him too closely. Merlin, it felt like she was peeling away his skin layer by layer. His foot tapped too quickly, and he regretted Blaise’s gigglewater.</p><p>“The best offense is a good defense.”</p><p>“Says the man who spent most of our school years slinging slurs.”</p><p>“Forgive me for changing up my methods.”</p><p>“As if I could easily forgive what is carved into my arm,” she spat and Draco flinched away from her, tucking the book under his arm. He had not expected her to bring up that night.</p><p>“As if I would ever deign to ask it of you,” he murmured before gesturing out to the crowd. “You have an entire room full of your comrades. Why on earth are you talking to me when you could be getting sloshed with them?”</p><p>She looked down again, made a show of counting knuts in her palm. “Someone has to run the till.”</p><p>“Even now you’re still doing the grunt work.”</p><p>She slammed the till closed, looked up at him with fire in her eyes. The trays floating among the crowd tremored before easing back into a confident path, but not before a glass of gigglewater fell onto Percy Weasley’s perfected coif. “Oh so sorry, Percy!” she called. He adjusted his robes, shoving away Ron when he tried to put a napkin on his head.</p><p>She turned back to Draco, looked him up and down. It was the most casually dressed she’d seen him. Since graduation it was rare to see him out and about at all and especially without cufflinks. Even at Slug and Jigger’s, he’d been suited up, buttoned up to his white throat. Seeing him in a simple sweater was unnerving, like a snake fresh from its old skin. “Why are you here?”</p><p>He lifted the book up. “I’m a paying patron of this establishment.”</p><p>She snorted. “You haven’t been in this shop since I’ve been running it for the past two years. You don’t care about Lupin, let alone his story.”</p><p>“One doesn’t provide one side of an argument without knowing the latter,” he repeated her words and tapped a knuckle on his copy. “Maybe I should get this signed. What do you think?”</p><p>“I think that Remus Lupin has been through enough without your condescension.”</p><p>“Condescension!” he huffed.</p><p>“Yes! Condescension, Malfoy!” Hermione’s voice was raised, but she glanced around at the crowd, leaning forward to hiss. “You did not come here to support Lupin. Why else would you be here but to look down your long nose at us all on a day meant to celebrate an honorable man who has suffered great loss? He is telling his story, a story he almost wasn’t able to tell because of people like you and your hateful family.”</p><p>“Do not talk about my family, Granger. I have been nothing but cordial tonight,” Draco growled, clenching the table under his hand.</p><p>“Oh sod off! Your mere presence is an insidious poison. You’ve shown no actual interest in supporting Lupin tonight and don’t you dare bring up those five galleons as if they're not knuts under your dragonhide loafers.”</p><p>“Oh you noticed? I’m so glad. They’re new,” he sneered.</p><p>“See! Deflection! You’ve spent this entire conversation quoting aphorisms into a wine glass!” She spat and slammed another bottle into the bin with a crash.</p><p>“Do be quiet, you harpy. You’re ruining your own party.” He wasn’t completely wrong. A few in the crowd had taken notice, including the Weasley with the scar across his face.</p><p>“You’re still here.”</p><p>“Ah yes, there’s that big brain that saved us all, ladies and gentlemen.”</p><p>“You’re a pig.”</p><p>“We were getting along so well. Should I quote another Muggle philosopher again?”</p><p>“Oh aren’t we pithy today,” she muttered. She looked past him at the crowd. “Now there’s a line so if you would kindly move. Along.”</p><p>“Perhaps I’d like to buy another copy.” He’d buy every copy in the place just to spite her.</p><p>“Perhaps you should collect your friend before he makes a fool of himself in front of Ginny.”</p><p>He looked over just in time to see Blaise let out an embarrassing high laugh that Draco prayed was just the gigglewater and not an actual giggle. The Weaselette seemed amused, but the crowd of Weasley boys were migrating closer.</p><p>Draco cursed, and quickly waded into the crowd, ducking his head as if that could hide his golden head. The closer he got, the clearer it was that Blaise was smashed. He had a hand on his hip, head inclined towards Ginny Weasley, but he could see the tell tale signs in the way he swayed from foot to foot. Blaise gestured wildly, and a bit of gigglewater sloshed out of his cup. The crowd hissed and pulled back from him.</p><p>Draco clapped a hand on Blaise’s shoulder and plucked the cup out of his hand. “Zabini, Weasley,” he greeted, nodding. He catalogued the Weasleys in front of him, Ginny, the one with the scar, and of course Ron puffing up already, face turning red as his hair.</p><p>Blaise swiveled on his heel to see him. “Draco! Join us!” He reached for his cup, but Draco brought it closer to his chest, not interested in humiliating his friend more than he already was.</p><p>“Let's head out. I’ve got a century old elderflower wine to get to at home.” He began to pull on Blaise to lead him to the door when Ron spoke.</p><p>“Yeah, don’t you have a curfew, Ferret?” Ron sneered. Draco couldn’t hide his flinch. He had sat in Azkaban for three months before his very public trial before the Wizengamot. Afterwards he had been placed on house arrest and eventually, yes, a curfew for when he dared to stretch his legs off the Malfoy Manor grounds. It had been a year since his curfew had been lifted for good behavior, but he couldn’t shake the shame at the reminder.</p><p>“Yeah, your mom is expecting him home any minute now,” Blaise spat.</p><p>And like that Ron was lunging forward in a windmill of arms. His brother locked his arms around Ron’s chest but not before Ron had latched onto Blaise. Blaise whipped his arm back out of his reach, elbow smashing into Draco’s nose. Draco roared and reared back, clutching his nose with one hand and grabbing the back of Blaise’s robe with the other, yanking him back.</p><p>“<em> Immobulus! </em>” Draco’s whole body locked tight, balanced on one heel, Blaise suspended in front of him caterwauling back. The Weasley with the scar had both arms locked around Ron’s arms and chest, Ron’s face red with rage, fists at his hips. And in between them both was Hermione, wand raised and hair seeming to grow bigger in the electricity of her wild magic. There was a war ready tremor in her wand arm.</p><p>“I’m going to release you four and you are going to calm down and not take away from Lupin’s night more than you already have. Bill, I’m expecting you to take care of Ron. And no, Ron, I really do not want to hear it.” She swiveled to look at where Blaise and Draco were frozen. He could barely see her out of the pinpoint of his gaze, just a specter with big hair in his periphery. She paused, and he waited in that moment for his lungs to expand again, to take the big breath he was in desperate need of.</p><p>“Harry, floo Blaise home, please. He’s had too much gigglewater. I don’t trust him to not splinch himself. I’ll fix up Malfoy.”</p><p>And the spell broke with a quick flick of her wand. Draco stumbled back, the pain in his nose pulsing through his face. Blaise shrugged Draco’s hand off his robe, but cringed when he looked at him. “Ah shit, Dray…” he started, face twisting at the sight he made. “You look awful.”</p><p>Draco pulled his hand away only to see it soaked in blood, cursed under his breath. Potter nudged passed him, took Blaise by the elbow. “C’mon Zabini, I’ll take you to the fireplace.” </p><p>But Blaise paused, and watched Draco through addled eyes. “Dray?”</p><p>Draco waved at a hand at him. “Just go. You sober enough to remember where you’re going?”</p><p>“Enough to remember it’s to your mom’s place.”</p><p>Draco snorted and then hissed at the pain it caused. “You’ve gotta get more jokes. Go. Before I think about how you got gigglewater on my new loafers.”</p><p>Blaise raised his hands in surrender, let Harry lead him away.</p><p>When they were all gone, it was just him and Hermione standing in the crowd. She somehow had spelled them all into distraction, and later he would be impressed by the feat, but now he just felt the thudding ache in his nose and slick of blood coating his chin. She studied him, a long look from his feet to his head, and he grew hot under her gaze. Any other time and he might feel thrilled by her attention, but instead he felt cracked open in more ways than one.</p><p>She sighed, rubbed her palm across her forehead and began to walk away. She paused and looked over her shoulder at him. She said, “Well come along then,” and he obeyed.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>References:<br/>Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Montgomery<br/>Santayana</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter Three</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The one where Draco admits to using a computer.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She said, “Well come along then,” and he obeyed.</p><p>Her office was a tidy mess, shelves stretched tight around her books, meticulously organized, but rolls of parchment were scattered across her desk, a ceramic mug stuffed full of quills and pencils. A small Christmas tree sat framed by her window, the lights on it slowly changing colors, branches heavy with ornaments. </p><p>Merlin help him, he had a childish impulse to tell her someone was calling her outside so he could search through the parchment for any of his letters to her, any hint that she held onto them the way he did hers. If it weren’t for the blood slick and coppery on his chin, he might have. The office smelled like evergreen and warm jasmine. His shoulders dropped from their chokehold when he crossed into it, but he still felt like an invader, as though he was seeing something he was never meant to. </p><p>So he said, “I can just apparate home, no need to get my blood all over your fine office.”</p><p>“It’s accustomed to dirtier blood than yours,” she snarked. His paced slowed, and his shoulders dropped low as he kept one hand raised to catch the well of blood. She could hear the <em> pat pat </em> of his blood dripping on the floor. She sighed. “It’s been a long night. Please. Sit.”</p><p>He sat down in the lumpy armchair beside her desk and groaned, leaning his head back to slow the flow of blood. Over his hand he watched her close the door and for a moment she rested her forehead against the door, a quiet breath deflating her body. But then she made her way to him, wrangling her bushy hair into a quick bun atop her head, business mask slipping into place. She leaned over him and lifted her wand, avoiding meeting his eyes.</p><p>“I’m going to point my wand at you, alright,” she said.</p><p>“Just do it, Granger.” His voice was a low grumble that made the hair on her arms stand on end.</p><p>She murmured <em> tergeo, </em> and he felt the blood disappear from his hands and his mouth. “Move your hand.”</p><p>He did, only for fresh blood to drip down over his mouth.</p><p>She cursed under her breath and held his chin steady as she reached up with one hand to wipe away the blood on his mouth with a quickly transfigured hanky. Energy still rattled through him at her proximity. He didn’t think he’d ever been this close to her. During school, he had glanced over and watched her work, the steady concentration of her slicing valerian in Potions class, her scolding Longbottom even as she patched his cauldron again. With his teen boy logic, he thought inciting her anger was as close as he would get to being the valerian under her knife’s edge.</p><p>But now with her whole focus on him, Draco felt his chest compress, a deep neediness to stay the object of her tender care. Under her gentle ministrations, petting him clean, he watched her with the quiet study of man before his last meal. He noted the freckles sitting high on her cheekbones, her long lashes lowered in her steady gaze, the wrinkle between her eyebrows from concentration. Then she brushed his nose with the hanky and he hissed as she tutted over him. </p><p>“We’ve been here before,” he murmured.</p><p>“No, we haven’t.”</p><p>“Yes, we have. You’ve broken my nose before.”</p><p>She glanced up from the blood on his mouth to his pale gray eyes, shifting when she realized how close she was to him. Her knees brushed against his so she stepped back, pulling one of his hands up to hold the handkerchief against his nose. “I didn’t know I broke it.”</p><p>“Don’t look too proud. Turns out Madam Promfrey is good for more than procuring prophylactic potions,” he drawled, voice nasal behind the hanky.</p><p>She flushed, primly arranging herself in her office chair. “If I remember correctly, and I usually do, Madam Promfrey was generous enough to heal you of quite a few well earned maladies.”</p><p>“Fair,” he said and she glanced at him, a bit surprised at his acquiescence. He licked his lips and tasted blood. “Snape brewed the potions you know.”</p><p>Her nose wrinkled and a traitorous part of his brain noticed how cute she looked like that. “Merlin, please don’t mention Snape and prophylactics in the same conversation.”</p><p>He started to grin, but winced again. A flash of guilt crossed her face and she quickly sat forward, pressing the tip of her wand to his nose, murmuring, <em> episkey </em>.</p><p>With a snap, his nose clicked back into place and he inhaled sharply. “Fuuuck, Granger.”</p><p>“You’re the one who was in a brawl at an author’s talk. Honestly. What in Merlin’s name could you all have to fight about at an author’s talk? I mean, really! Bunch of school boys.”</p><p>“Yes, I get it, we’re children dredging up school yard fights, immature, childish, selfish. I know this song already,” he groaned.</p><p>“Dismiss it all you want, but you came to my job, my shop and started a fight on an important night. I have a right to be upset.”</p><p>“Blame me for the fight if that helps you sleep at night. I know you lot would prefer that.” He picked at a stray thread on the armchair, and her eyes followed his movements.</p><p>“Oh don’t be so self-pitying. I never said I was blaming you,” she said, nostrils flaring.</p><p>“You don’t have to say it. I can see it the way you look like you've smelled a newborn mandrake.”</p><p>“I do not!” she spat, brow furrowing. “Well what then? Why were you over there in the first place?”</p><p>Draco let his head hang against the chairback. Hermione looked at the long line of his pale throat and was reminded of an animal in surrender baring its vulnerable belly. She felt an odd thrill at the thought, the same she had when she had bent over him and wiped blood from his mouth, like these were little hints that the man writing to her all this year could really be in front of her waiting to be exposed.</p><p>She wasn’t sure if she could reconcile her friend on paper with the pureblood man making himself comfortable in her hand me down armchair. His posture reeked of old money, the ramrod spine, but then the easy sprawl of his long legs.  When she’d seen him at his Wizengamot trial, he’d appeared to be a husk of who he’d been, a paper man filled up with sand to keep him on his feet as he was sentenced to three months in Azkaban. In his sweater, cashmere no doubt, he looked tangible in a way he hadn’t in his black cloaks. He looked soft to touch, and she felt aware in a new way that he was solid, that there was muscle and sinew and a heart <em>wubdubing</em> inside that lean frame.</p><p>“Blaise’s got a hard on for the little Weasley,” he drawled.</p><p>She startled, eyes widening before squinting again in thought. “Blaise and Ginny? Not sure I see it.” </p><p>“And you won’t at this rate. Fool forgot that making fun of Weasley’s mom was making fun of hers.”</p><p>“Ah. So did Ron do this?”</p><p>“No, wasn’t your Weasley.”</p><p>“He’s not my Weasley. Not Bill?”</p><p>“Blaise actually.” At her look, he shrugged, demonstrated throwing an elbow back. He sighed at her incredulous look. “Not your Weasley, eh? Thought you two were written in the stars and all that.”</p><p>She snorted. “Not unless Lavender Brown is the asteroid in that orbit.”</p><p>“Asteroid?”</p><p>“For coming from a family that named their children after constellations, you don’t know much about the cosmos.”</p><p>“Hard to find time in between practicing my scowl in the mirror and beating house elves.” And there it was, that same voice she recognized as though each letter had been spoken aloud to her, and she resented that she didn’t mind the idea.</p><p>She made a big show of rolling her eyes, taking the hanky from him with one last swipe over his mouth. “<em> Tergeo </em>. You’ll have some bruising around your eyes. If you want your nose set cleaner to preserve that pretty face, you may have to go to St. Mungo’s. I’ve got battlefield experience, not aesthetic.”</p><p>“Never thought you’d call me pretty,” he said, leaning forward until his elbows were set on his knees.</p><p>She flushed, pinched her lips together and turned away to rifle through a drawer. “I’ve got eyes. I do see what the papers call you.”</p><p>“Ah of course you do. Let me guess. Malfoy Heir Disgraced. Former prisoner of Azkaban. Hogwarts dropout. Supremacist cult member. Or as my grandfather Abraxas’s portrait would call me, blood traitor.” He ticked them off on his fingers.</p><p>“I think you made Witch Weekly’s list of Blood Traitor Bad Boys.” He watched for her expression, but she was digging out glass jars of oils and crushed yellow flowers. She propped a mortar and pestle in her lap, but the pestle rolled over the hill of her thigh. Draco reached out and caught it before it could drop, rolling it between his fingers as he watched her sort through her supplies in her already crowded lap.</p><p>“You read Witch Weekly, eh?”</p><p>“Contrary to what some people seem to think, I am a woman,” she said with a scowl, focused on dripping exactly three drips of oil into the stone mortar.</p><p>“I’ve noticed.” </p><p>She glanced up at him, brow furrowed, and fidgeted in her seat. He caught a jar of oil before it could shatter on the ground. It was heavy and filled with something white that looked flakey. She took it from him with a prim nod, avoiding his eyes. When she opened it, he smelled something tropical like coconut. </p><p>“Why are you here, Malfoy?” she asked, voice quiet as she used the edge of her penknife to scrape a layer of hard coconut oil into a perfect curl, not unlike the one springing free from her rushed bun. Merlin, he was a goner.</p><p>“Blaise wanted to come.”</p><p>“You came knowing that the majority of the people here don’t think too kindly of you.” Hermione began twisting the yellow flowers into bits, an agitated haphazard technique that would have lost Gryffindor twenty points if Snape had seen it.</p><p>“I wore a disguise,” Draco tried.</p><p>Hermione shook her head. “A sweater instead of formal robes can’t disguise that Malfoy head of hair. Pestle.”</p><p>He offered the stone pestle, and her fingers grazed his, small but rough with signs of work. “Can’t blame a man for trying.”</p><p>“I can when I know him to be smarter than that.”</p><p>“See and now you’ve complimented me twice in one sitting. Perhaps you’re the one in disguise.”</p><p>“Yes, it’s me, Snape, brewing your weekly supply of prophylactics potion. Fifty points to Slytherin,” she drawled.</p><p>Draco was startled enough to allow himself to laugh, and she bent her head to hide her pleased smile. He bit his lip and said, “Snape could never pull off that skirt.”</p><p>Her muddling slowed, her voice strained. “Are you flirting with me?”</p><p>“Well you’re no Madam Pomfrey, but I won’t hold that against you,” he said quickly, but she caught a nervous pitch in the beginning before he caught onto his rhythm again.</p><p>“Not even I will argue with that. Now stay still.” With the tip of her pinky finger, she scooped up a dab of salve and began to lightly pat it over the sensitive bridge of his nose. His eyes began to water as the herbal smell filled his senses and she tutted when a tear fell down his cheek. “I know it’s been you owl-ordering all those books.”</p><p>His chest squeezed tighter again, and he felt at once compact and like he would shatter into pieces if he fell wrong. “That so,” he murmured. His eyes tracked hers, and she looked away to scoop up another swab of paste.</p><p>“Mmhmm, Cycnus Swan was a bit redundant.”</p><p>“Oh sure like Remus Lupin is much better.”</p><p>“Hush you. Don’t you want to know how I knew it was you?”</p><p>“If I said no, would it stop you?” Dammit, he knew how petulant he sounded. He had imagined her figuring out it was him, she was too smart not to, but he hadn’t expected her to be so calm. In his head he had imagined it over and over, her screaming at him to get out or crying and accusing him of tricking her or punching him in the face again. Her hand was too steady, and his nose twinged.</p><p>She sniffed, pressed a touch too hard under his eyes where it was already beginning to swell, and he grunted. “Cycnus is the swan constellation. An alternative spelling matches Cygnus as in Tonks’s grandfather Cygnus Black, who would also be your grandfather. Tonks regularly visits the shop without issue, Andromeda is dead, her sister is dead, and your mother wouldn’t be writing commentary about Anne of Green Gables comparing McGonagall to Anne’s adoptive mother Marilla Cuthbert. What was it you said? Ah yes. <em> Marilla seems to share the same reluctant tendency as McGonagall of taking in orphans with questionable hair. </em> The only logical conclusion is you.”</p><p>“Who can really know with the massacre Walburga made of the Black family tree tapestry,” he muttered.</p><p>But she wasn’t done. “Interesting thing is, Cycnus Swan is also the only patron to order any of the few Muggle literature I keep in stock.”</p><p>“Muggles. Hate them all, wizards are the best and all that,” Draco tried, but the way she paused in her ministrations to raise an eyebrow at him had him sighing. “You’ve found me out, Granger. Brava.”</p><p>She did little to hide her smug smile, but she was still tender as she went to his other eye with the ointment. “What I would want to know is why you wouldn’t just come into the shop.”</p><p>“Yes, why wouldn’t I go to the shop recently procured by the woman I antagonized throughout our school years and who suffered within my family home? You’ve just said the majority of the people here don’t think too kindly of me.”</p><p>Her jaw flexed, and he could almost swear he could hear her teeth grinding. “We’re all grown now. The war was years ago. An event like this is one thing. A midday browse in the Muggle sciences section is another.”</p><p>“You called my presence an insidious poison,” he said dryly.</p><p>She winced. “You used to mock Lupin in school. You can’t blame me for becoming combative.”</p><p>Draco sighed, fists clenching in the fabric of his wool slacks. “I almost came to the shop once. I made it all the way to the door. But then I saw you, and you seemed so happy among your books. No matter what Witch Weekly may try to say, I know what I remind people of.”</p><p>“You could do more in the public eye than hiding from it,” she said. There was a hint of challenge in her voice that sparked a glimmer of hope, something he had a lot of practice in squashing down. “I’ve had to order books from London to keep up with your owl orders. Some of your requests are so random, I haven’t even heard of them. Why on earth did you want a book of Jimmy Carter’s poetry?”</p><p>Draco frowned. “He was an American Muggle president. It felt pertinent.”</p><p>The way she smiled at him could only be described as fond and confused, brow furrowed, and eyes squinting as she brushed the lock of flaxen hair off his forehead so gently that he shivered. She paused, fingers threaded through his thin hair.</p><p>“And did you like his poems?”</p><p>He pursed his lips. “No, they rely too heavily on rhyme schemes for my taste.”</p><p>“Oh? And what do you like?”</p><p>His gray eyes swept over her face, looking for something she wasn’t sure, but he found it enough to take a deep breath and begin. “What we see, we see/and seeing is changing/the light that shrivels a mountain/and leaves a man alive,” he murmured, and her heart pounded in her chest.</p><p>“Adrienne Rich?” she asked, and he nodded, watching her eyes intently. She felt at once deficient and robust in the aim of his sight, like a full bodied wine uncorked and hoping to be consumed.</p><p>“Planetarium. But I like the one about Marie Curie. Now there’s insidious. ‘She died a famous woman denying/her wounds/denying/her wounds came from the same source as her power.’”</p><p>“You never ordered an Adrienne Rich book,” she said. Watching his lips shape around a Muggle woman’s poetry with such tender care made something in her gut clench tight and warm. </p><p>“I went to London, to, ah, to a library.”</p><p>She went rigid in her seat. “You went to a Muggle library?”</p><p>He nodded and frowned. “They showed me how to use the computing device to find the poetry collection.”</p><p>“A computer,” she provided and he kept nodding.</p><p>“Yes that, and since they wouldn’t let me take anything out because I, ah, needed an address with a postal code, whatever that is, they gave me paper but they didn’t have any quills to copy any of it down.”</p><p>“You went to a Muggle library and used a computer.” She drifted closer like a sailor to a siren recognizing a whisper of home in their song. She imagined Draco Malfoy, in his black robes buttoned up and broad standing over Muggle librarians asking them for a quill, and she felt a hysterical giggle coming on.</p><p>Draco’s brow furrowed, and she was tempted to reach up and smooth his forehead with her thumb. “Yes, well, it was before I started ordering from here, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I don’t really like pens. They’re so clinical and feel too economical for writing a poem. It felt like copying a dictionary where the words just happened to mean something.”</p><p>It struck Hermione then that he was rambling. Draco Malfoy in his cashmere sweater was tapping one foot on the ground, eyes darting around the room, and he was rambling. She leaned forward suddenly and brushed her lips against his like a nervous child dipping its toe in uncharted waters. He went still. Turning red with embarrassment, she began to pull back, but he tipped his head up higher to meet her. He chased her mouth with his, a feather brush against hers like he thought anymore might scare her away. He worried his mouth still tasted like blood, but at the tentative touch of her tongue he lost that train of thought and bared down into her gasping mouth.</p><p>The hand in his hair gripped tight, and he leaned into the pull of her fist. He wrapped an arm around her waist, finally touching the soft swell of her hips he had been admiring all night in quick glances. She swayed into his touch, reaching a hand up to cup the nape of his neck, tilting her head to better reach him. She was half out of her seat, gravitating closer and using her hand in his hair to angle him the way she wanted. Draco was happy to be at her mercy and languished in her need until his own overcame him, and he pulled her into the opening of his thighs, loving the drag of her body over his. She fell into him, letting out an “oof” when he scooped an arm under her knees to drape her across his lap.</p><p>He tasted like wine, warm and rich and she drank him down in big luxurious sips that had him groaning against her mouth. The way she was cradled in his lap made him seem big and all encompassing, like a large wave that undulated and pressed in from all sides, and she was happy to drown in him. When his hands traced down her sides, she felt a rush of heat to her core. Emboldened, she leaned up into him, one hand anchored on his broad shoulder. Her nose brushed his, and he wrenched his head back with a hiss of pain.</p><p>“Oh! Oh no I’m so sorry!” she cried, hands fluttering around his face. </p><p>Fresh blood leaked out his nose, and he subconsciously licked his upper lip and made a face. She quickly transfigured another handkerchief and pressed it to his nose. His gray eyes looked almost blue next to the red swelling filling his eyebags.</p><p>“Oh dear, you must’ve burst a capillary,” she said.</p><p>“Isn’t that an animal?” he asked, voice nasal behind the handkerchief, and she affectionately patted his cheek and said, “That’s a capybara, silly.”</p><p>He grunted, leaning his head back and letting her clean him up and savoring the feel of her in his lap. He was sure any second now she’d realize where she was and they’d be forced to acknowledge what had just transpired. But he found he liked the idea of her lipstick staining his mouth, the rust of his blood next to the pretty pink of her mouth.</p><p>A knock on the door sounded, and she cursed and stumbled off his lap, narrowly avoiding kneeing him in the process. Her attempt at a bun was half collapsed, curls half falling out one side, and her cheeks were flushed red. If Draco wasn’t so insecure about where he stood he would’ve felt a selfish pride in how debauched she appeared. She was already pulling at her hair anyways, coaxing it into some version of normalcy that didn’t involve being ravished by a Slytherin. Merlin, Potter would probably accuse him of imperiusing her, putting her under some evil thrall to snatch her maidenhead or some nonsense.</p><p>She opened her door and the chatter of the event drifted back into the room. Potter’s messy head of hair peaked around the door, and he eyed Draco where he lounged in the armchair by her desk. Potter glanced at Hermione, eyes shooting over her quickly, searching for any sign of indiscretion he supposed. He could hear Potter murmuring something at the door about signing and the till.</p><p>“Do you need anything?” Potter asked her, looking only at her. She smoothed down her skirt, finding anything to futz with than meet his eye. The taste in Draco’s mouth went sour and he stood, shoulders up and head high, his guard shuttering over his face. He understood. He was someone you kissed behind closed doors.</p><p>“Yes, you can point me to the nearest fireplace.” He spoke directly to Potter, tried not to notice the frown on her face. He turned to her and with a polite, civil, indifferent nod of his head, said, “Thank you for your help.”</p><p>She nodded, brow furrowing and glancing up at him under her eyelashes. With a flick of her wand she gathered her salve into one of those small jars and she held it out to him like an olive branch. “Here. Apply it in the morning and at night to help with the bruising.”</p><p>With a curt nod, he followed Potter out the door. The jar weighed heavy in his pocket, and he rubbed his thumb across it like a worry stone, chasing the warmth of her touch.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>References:<br/>Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Montgomery<br/>Always a Reckoning, and Other Poems by Jimmy Carter<br/>Links to Adrienne Rich poetry. Planetarium. Power<br/>https://www.americanpoems.com/poets/adrienne_rich/planetarium/<br/>https://www.americanpoems.com/poets/adrienne_rich/power/</p><p>Comments welcome!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter Four</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Blaise Zabini reads the Monday paper, and Harry hates Hermione's lemon tarts.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It probably needs editing, but it's late and I'm tired and I can't go home for Christmas so I'll be spending it completely alone in my apartment. Thanks, Covid-19.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Draco exited the floo, an old Franklin stove fireplace, he found Blaise asleep on a couch in his sewing studio. The studio was located in a factory on the edge of Diagon Alley among a cluster of abandoned buildings. Large windows let the sunlight stream in, lighting up racks of clothing, dress forms draped in luxurious cloth. Blaise was sleeping on a small couch tucked against the wall, still in his robes from the night before, his wand and boots discarded on the floor. Draco approached on silent feet, looked down at his friend and promptly smacked Blaise in the chest with a rolled up copy of the Daily Prophet. Blaise spluttered awake, blinking until he recognized Draco. He groaned and covered his eyes with one hand.</p><p>“Oh it’s you. I was having such a good dream too.”</p><p>“If it involves red hair, I want to hear nothing of it. If it involves you groveling and taking responsibility for this, then please, start anytime.” Draco slapped the Daily Prophet onto Blaise’s chest and pointed at it.</p><p>“Give a man a minute.” Blaise slumped off the couch to retrieve his wand from the floor and with a wave the tall factory windows shuttered. He settled back down with a sigh of relief.</p><p>“Not my fault you drank enough to land a dragon on its back.”</p><p>“Arse,” Blaise grumbled. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and squinted at the paper on his chest. Draco paced back and forth, scuffing his shoes on the stone floor.</p><p> </p><p>Flagrant Brawl at Flourish and Blotts</p><p>By Rita Skeeter</p><p>Remus Lupin’s book talk at Flourish and Blotts, now under new ownership in Hermione Granger’s inexperienced hands, was a howling good time, commemorated with moon pies and toasts to the honored guest. The party was a who’s who of war heroes from as big as Harry Potter himself to as small as Neville Longbottom. Even in such illustrious company, drama unfolded when the notorious Draco Malfoy crashed the party and engaged in fisticuffs with the entire Weasley clan. Granger made a scene defending Malfoy and was last spotted disappearing into the night with the handsome ex Death Eater. Schoolyard love is a fickle thing, and poor Potter spent the rest of the night looking for her. Has Granger moved onto bigger pocketbooks?</p><p> </p><p>Blaise snickered. “You and Granger run off together now did you?”</p><p>Draco dropped down into the chair opposite Blaise. “Yes, we’re expecting twins.” He placed a vial of green potion on the coffee table. </p><p>Blaise nodded his head in thanks and drank it quickly. He gagged, but his cheeks were already gaining color again. “And here I thought your equipment had rotted off from lack of use.”</p><p>“Don’t you worry about my equipment.” Draco’s lip curled and he got up again to pace. “Besides after your performance last night, yours won’t be getting much use either.</p><p>Blaise dropped his head back down onto the couch. “I wasn’t so awful.”</p><p>“You implied I was fucking the Weaslette’s mother and then you broke my nose and then you left me there.” Draco emphatically gestured to his face where his eyes were swollen into a squint.</p><p>Blaise winced. “Did Granger scold you horribly?”</p><p>“Not quite,” Draco murmured, and his walking slowed. He picked up a pin cushion and began plucking the needles out. </p><p>“So you did run off together.”</p><p>“Not quite that either.”</p><p>Blaise pushed himself to sit upright and rested his forehead in his hand. “Speak plainly, Dray, I’m too hungover for your drama.”</p><p>Draco took a deep breath and spread his hands, palms up. “She kissed me.”</p><p>Blaise lifted his head and stared at him. “You’ve got to fucking kidding me.”</p><p>“I’m not. A right snog too.”</p><p>“You’re leaving something out.” Blaise said it like a fact. He conjured a glass of water and drank deeply. Draco sat down again. and propped his feet up on the coffee table. Blaise sneered and pushed them off, muttering, “Barbarian.”</p><p>“We’ve been exchanging letters for some time now.”</p><p>“Letters.”</p><p>“Well, in a way. I’ve been ordering from her shop. Under a fake name. For a year. We, ah, we talk about books.”</p><p>Blaise closed his eyes and nodded. “And she figured it out.”</p><p>“Why do you think she figured it out? Maybe I told her.” Draco began poking the needles back into the pin cushion in perfect straight lines.</p><p>“She’s Hermione Granger, and you’re a fool. What I don’t understand is how that led to her kissing you instead of slapping you.”</p><p>“I was a bit distracted at the time. I, ah, I might’ve quoted some Muggle poetry at her.”</p><p>“Merlin’s beard, you used poetry to get into her knickers.”</p><p>“Don’t be crude,” Draco spat, stabbing one pin in with unnecessary vigor.</p><p>“You like her." Blaise sat up straighter. "S’pose you were staring her down all night.” </p><p>“It doesn’t matter. She kissed me then Potter interrupted, and I left.” Draco fiddled with the pin cushion then discarded it on the coffee table with a huff.</p><p>Blaise massaged his temples. “And?”</p><p>“And what? I’m not so big a fool to think anything will come of it. One kiss doesn’t change our entire history.”</p><p>“But you want it to.”</p><p>“Don’t be absurd,” Draco muttered, scuffing one foot on the floor.</p><p>Blaise slammed his drinking glass on the coffee table. “No, what I think is absurd is that you come here at the crack of dawn-</p><p>“It’s nearly noon.”</p><p>“-and you tell me you’ve been exchanging love letters with a girl for a year-”</p><p>“They’re not love letters!”</p><p>”-and that that girl kissed you last night and instead of spending the rest of your night in a rapturous embrace, you let Potter scare you off, and now you’re whinging to me about it!”</p><p>“Rapturous embrace!” Draco scoffed, but his head dropped below his shoulders, elbows resting on his knees.</p><p>“I’m not one of your Muggle poets. That’s the best you’re getting out of me if I’m not allowed to be crude and disrespect your beloved paramour.”</p><p>“Oh shut it…” Draco said weakly. He rubbed a hand across his eyes and cringed. “I can’t just forget what happened only a few years ago. Merlin knows she hasn’t either. But she’s so earnest and sharp and funny! Was she always funny? She’s been writing to me twice a week minimum for a year, and the idea of losing her...I can’t stand it.”</p><p>Blaise swung his legs back up onto the couch, arranged the pillow under his head. “I find it laughable you think Hermione Granger would do anything she didn’t want to do. Now if you’re finished waxing poetic about the glory of Granger’s elbows, I highly recommend you go do something about it and leave me alone.”</p><p>“You’re an arsehole.”</p><p>“Ta.”</p><p>Draco waved his wand to open the window shutters and heard Blaise cursing his name before he slipped away in the floo.</p><p>
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</p><p>On the other side of Diagon Alley, Padma Patil was frozen, trying to process this revelation in the middle of alphabetizing the divination section.</p><p>“Draco Malfoy is the Muggle book lover.” Padma tried it out loud, as though tasting it to see if it sounded right. “Draco Malfoy has been writing you letters under a fake name for a year. Draco Malfoy has been writing you letters that make you laugh and blush for a YEAR.”</p><p>“I do not blush!” Hermione cried, blushing.</p><p>“What are you going to do?” Padma asked, but then when she looked at Hermione’s face, she asked instead, “Wait, what did you do?”</p><p>Hermione sniffed and raised her chin. “I don’t know what you mean.”</p><p>“Hermione.”</p><p>“I didn’t do much of anything,” Hermione said.</p><p>“Don’t play at being coy, Hermione. You’re no good at it.”</p><p>“I’m good at everything,” Hermione harrumphed.</p><p>Harry slipped out of the floo, reading the Daily Prophet in one hand and drinking tea out of the other as though he was walking into his own den. “Hello, Hermione, Padma. Now what’s Hermione no good at?” He set his tea on the counter and leaned on an elbow, hair ruffled in his handsome hero way.</p><p>“We were discussing Hermione’s ineptitude,” Padma said.</p><p>“Ah ok. Hermione, you know I love you, but your lemon tarts are abominable,” Harry said gamely.</p><p>Padma hummed and nodded. “Not enough sugar. It’s like eating an acid pop.”</p><p>Harry snapped his fingers. “Yes exactly!”</p><p>Hermione slammed her records book closed. “Harry, shouldn’t you be at work?”</p><p>“Hm? Oh no, a boggart made camp in a Muggle hostel in London, and apparently it took the shape of Alexander the Great. It tried to rip the beard off the hostel owner so I was there all Saturday night regrowing beards and obliviating backpackers. So I’ve got today off.”</p><p>Hermione looked up in interest. “Did you use the <em> capillus barba </em> variation?” she asked.</p><p>“Ah well, no, I just used <em> capillus </em>.”</p><p>“Not wrong, but not quite right. <em> Capillus barba </em> is specific to facial hair. I wouldn’t be surprised if all of the hair on their head was growing too.”<br/><br/>“See now this is why I need you out there,” Harry said and thumped his newspaper on the counter. “That brain is wasted in this little shop.”</p><p>“And here I thought I was inept.”</p><p>“Whenever you want to get back out there again, you let me know. Lord knows you’d be better to work with than Cormac. At this rate even Malfoy would be better than Cormac.”</p><p>Padma glanced at Hermione. “I heard he came to the book signing last night.”</p><p>Harry nodded, glanced at his paper. “He didn’t last too long before he got in a fight and broke his nose.”</p><p>“That wasn’t Draco’s fault,” Hermione said.</p><p>“Draco?” Harry made a face. “Since when is it Draco?”</p><p>Ever since her and Ron’s breakup, she and Harry had only hung out without Ron, except for Weasley family events where Ron would skulk around like a guilty dog anytime he saw her. Hermione liked to think Harry spent more time with her now out of loyalty, but she also knew he couldn’t stand Lavender and was too kind to say so directly.</p><p>“You know how I’ve been getting those Muggle book orders from that Swan character?” she began slowly.</p><p>“Sure, you were finally able to afford to relocate the Blotts ghoul from the basement.”</p><p>“Yes! Yes, exactly. Well, I’ve been writing with him for the better part of a year now and it’s sort of come to a head so to speak.”</p><p>Harry waited, and Hermione balked at the idea of having to say this aloud to him. God if she couldn’t even tell him this, how was she to tell him she had snogged Draco Malfoy in her office the night before?</p><p>Padma rolled her eyes and said, “Turns out it’s been Malfoy the whole time.</p><p>Harry’s head whipped back to Hermione, eyes wide. “S’that why he was in your office all night?” he asked and Hermione’s face burned bright red. </p><p>“Well, technically, his nose was actually broken, and I <em> was </em> mending it. But, ah, yes, I had a theory based on contextual evidence and got him to admit it.”</p><p>“Torture it out of him did you?”</p><p>“I may have waited longer than necessary to heal him,” Hermione said with some shame, and Harry patted her hand kindly.</p><p>“So that’s done then,” he said.</p><p>Hermione fell silent and frowned. Padma watched her fiddle with her quill. “I don’t think it’s that simple. These were love letters.”</p><p>“They were not!” Hermione protested. Padma gave her a look, and Hermione sighed. “They were friendly. We had become friends.” She felt childish, like she was eleven years old again tagging along after Harry and Ron in hopes they’d invite her along some time.</p><p>Harry was quiet, watching her with the same concern as the night before. After Malfoy had left that night, she had busied herself with refilling drinks and selling books and taking out the trash before it was even closing time despite Harry’s protests that she relax with him and their friends. But she couldn’t stay still. That night she had gone to bed positively vibrating, like every nerve in her body was lit up with a sensual combination of fear and excitement. She had made a performance of forcing herself into corpse pose to convince herself to sleep, not allowing herself her usual nighttime ritual of a quick orgasm before bed for fear of whose face she’d imagine behind her eyelids.</p><p>“I like, liked Cycnus Swan,” she said quietly. “He went to a Muggle library and used a computer to look up poetry.”</p><p>Harry’s eyebrows rose high above his glasses, mouth hanging open, but he still said nothing.  He always did this, like he knew if he was quiet for long enough she’d purge her entire soul.</p><p>Barely over a whisper, Hermione said, “I kissed him.”</p><p>Harry blinked, sat back on his heels. “Oh! Oh.”</p><p>Hermione covered her face and groaned. Merlin, she was sweating all over.</p><p>“I knew you did something,” Padma said.</p><p>“He quoted Muggle poetry at me! Ron only ever quoted quidditch stats as though I could give a damn about how many bludgers that one Cannon has taken to the head. I’m so confused, I mean I’ve been writing to this person for a YEAR!”</p><p>“Well according to the Daily Prophet, you’ve dumped Harry for Malfoy,” Padma said gesturing to Harry’s newspaper she had spread out across the counter. “It’s in the society section.”</p><p>“What!!” Hermione shrieked and snatched the paper from Padma. ”Oh that despicable hag!”</p><p>“You can’t curse her again. You’re a legal adult now,” Harry warned. “Not that she doesn’t deserve it.”</p><p>“Sometimes I regret ever letting that bitch of a beetle out of that jar.” Hermione fumed, crumpling the newspaper in her hands.</p><p>“See this is the kind of attitude that makes your torrid love affair with a Slytherin make more sense,” Padma cautioned.</p><p>Hermione slammed a box of down on the counter, using a sharp slash of her wand to tear it open. Harry watched her with growing concern as she flung books this way and that into messy, leaning towers.</p><p>“Hermione, if you like him, it’s ok.”</p><p>She paused, glanced up at him and bit her lip. “Is it?” she asked quietly.</p><p>“He wouldn’t be my first choice, but I wouldn’t have been a witness during his trial if I thought he was all bad. I wonder who I’d be if Lucius Malfoy had been my father.” Harry took a long sip of his tea, watching Hermione over the brim of his teacup.</p><p>Hermione pinched her lips together, neatened the pile of books in front of her. “It doesn’t matter. He ran away as quickly as he could.”</p><p>“You’re too smart to believe it’s that simple.”</p><p>Hermione snorted. “Maybe. I can’t make heads from tails of my own thoughts lately.”</p><p>Harry patted her shoulder. “If anyone can figure it out, it’s you. In the meantime, I’ll be here for any measures you may need to take, even if it means eating your anxiety baking experiments while you figure it out.”</p><p>She swatted at him and he raised his hands, backing away to the floo. “Happy Christmas, Hermione!” he called.</p><p>“Christmas isn’t for another week,” she grumbled, but she smiled.</p><p>Hermione busied herself preparing for the onslaught of Christmas shoppers, arranging the best sellers to face the door and an arrangement of holiday fare from Father Christmas Fruitcakes to gift trinkets like the handbound diaries that only opened if you threaded a single strand of the owner’s hair through the keyhole.</p><p>Every day she would try to sneak away to her office to see if Prometheus the eagle owl had brought her any scrap of contact, but all she found was a growing cluster of owl orders for rushed Christmas gifts. In a way she was happy for the holiday frenzy, but then she returned to her apartment and the quiet fell over her like a heavy blanket. She made a habit of approaching her parchment and ink with great intention, and then losing her step before she could truly sit herself down to the task.</p><p>She tried to distract herself with reading but then she’d read a passage she wanted to share with Cycnus and she would toss her book aside in frustration. She cleaned her kitchen, organized her condiments in alphabetical order and decided to take up knitting again. She got through half of a sock before she threw it down with a huff and put herself to bed with a sleeping draught and a vow to keep her hands at her sides, no funny business. No remembering his hands, his long slim fingers, the rumble in his chest when she slid her hand into the hair at the nape of his neck, the cupid’s bow of his mouth.</p><p>By the time she made it Tea Leaf Third Thursday, Hermione was a fraught mix of longing and frustration. Padma peeked her head into Hermione’s office at the sound of teacups clinking together as Hermione haphazardly arranged them on a gold cart.</p><p>“Keep that up and we’ll have to limit participants because we don’t have enough cups,” Padma warned.</p><p>Hermione huffed and stepped away from the fragile china. “Parvati here?”</p><p>“Mhm. We apparated in together. She’s arranging the cafe tables already.”</p><p>Hermione nodded, wringing her hands. While talking about divination with Parvati made Hermione want to claw her own eyes out, she had to respect Parvati’s punctuality. She wondered if Parvati referenced tea leaves when she arranged her timetables. With a roll of her shoulders, Hermione cracked her neck and wheeled the cart out to the main atrium, Padma pacing behind her like a spotter.</p><p>Parvati looked up with a sweet dreamy smile, the bangles on her wrist rattling as she waved a hello. She looked so much like her twin sister, but where Padma’s face was angular, Parvati’s was soft. Padma would hate it if Hermione said it, but the twins made the same happy tutting sounds when they ate something they particularly liked. Hermione’s smile was pinched and polite as she quickly twisted her hair on her head and shoved her wand through it to keep it in place. She took a deep breath and began summoning small plates of finger foods onto the cart with the teacups. There was already a hum of chatter coming from outside the doors, the third Thursday regulars waiting outside in the snow for the shop to open.</p><p>“Hermione,” Padma began. “Why is Draco Malfoy pacing outside our door?”</p><p>Hermione hurried over to peek around the curtains, and Padma was right. Draco Malfoy was working an actual rut into the snow outside Flourish and Blotts, bundled up in a thick green scarf up to his ears.</p><p>Mouth gaping open, heart pounding in her throat, Hermione murmured, “I couldn’t possibly know.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>No references this chapter.</p><p>Comments welcome!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter Five</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Padma pretends to be a trolley witch.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thought it would be done in five chapters, but I think they need a bit more time together to emotionally get where I wanted them to.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The storefront was busy, a smattering of women chattering outside the entrance to Flourish and Blotts. Garland hung from the eaves, framing the windows where journals and bouquets of quills were on display. A flag hung outside the door, waving in the snowy weather, announcing Tea Leaf Readings with Parvarti Patil. Draco fought the urge to roll his eyes at the energy of cheer around him, burrowing deeper into his scarf and wondering if a disillusionment charm would be overkill. He was a tall dark figure in a crowd of pink and purple and he wondered if this was the most foolish thing he had ever done.</p><p>And then he ducked behind a window awning when he saw Hermione Granger come to unlock the door and surmised that no this was the most foolish thing he had ever done. He had lived with Voldemort in the bedroom next door, but fear choked him at the thought of walking through that entryway.</p><p>But he found himself trailing behind the giggling pack of divination enthusiasts, a dark spectre in a sea of pinks and purples. Inside he found the history section missing and in its place a variety of small cafe tables. A gold cart featured colorful fingerfoods, puff pastries and a plate of untouched lemon tarts. A pair of tongs was daintily dropping tea leaves into a variety of mismatched teacups. Around him people unwound their scarfs and took their seats, obviously regulars by the way they greeted each other and claimed their tables with friends.</p><p>Draco wandered off towards the stacks, finding an empty cafe table next to some secondhand textbooks and took a seat, long legs twisted together to fit under the small table. From his seat he could see Parvarti Patil at the front, a pile of gauzy scarves wrapped around her neck, her gold bell earrings chiming as she nodded her head. Hermione was saying something to her with a polite smile, her arms were crossed against her chest. The warm crimson of her sweater matched with a pair of gray wool trousers looked aggressively practical next to Parvarti’s scarf collection and cascade of skirts. Her eyes drifted over the room, surveying her guests and Draco panicked and reached for a nearby book to flip through, lifting it up to cover his face.</p><p>The sound of her flats padding across the hardwood was his only warning. “Freshening up on second year Herbology?”</p><p>He looked up, and there she was. Her rosebud mouth pursed, and her hair was twisted into a knot with her wand, betraying the frenzy of her day. His fingers twitched at the memory of her curls wrapped around his fingers. He cleared his throat and closed the textbook, wiped his sweaty palms on his thighs.</p><p>“Yes well, a fanged geranium sprout was recently found in the manor gardens and the poor house elves are beside themselves.”</p><p>“That so? Have you tried a trail of raw chicken?” Her voice was neutral, falling into a lecturer tone that was at once natural for her and distancing.</p><p>“Ah well, no.” He drummed his fingers across the textbook cover.</p><p>“Fanged geraniums are notoriously transient. Make a trail of meat before their roots are set and they’ll follow it off a cliff should you so choose.”</p><p>“Explains why they’re so taken with the elves,” he mused. Her expression darkened and he raised his hands defensively. “A joke, Granger. We employ a very capable gardener to keep all carnivorous plants in check.”</p><p>Her lips pinched together, and she looked around the room as tea cups began to float to their assigned tables. Draco watched a lock of hair fall out of its knot and curl around her slender neck right where he wanted to place his lips.</p><p>He cleared his throat, settled the book back on the shelf beside him. “Do you loom over all of your patrons?”</p><p>Her head whipped to look down at him, fists clenching at her sides. “Looming! No one has ever accused me of looming.”</p><p>“You mean no one’s ever told you you’ve loomed. That’s another thing entirely. Here we have a textbook case. Now take a seat before you intimidate me, and I cry loudly and publicly and we make the papers again.”</p><p>She harrumphed, but took the seat across from him, watching two teacups settle on their table with narrowed eyes. A sweet little china teapot floated above, pouring hot water into each without even a splash before bobbing over to the next table.</p><p>Parvati stepped forward, tapped her wand two times on her throat. When she spoke her singsong voice rang out over the shop. “Hello my little snowbirds. Always a pleasure to see familiar faces, and to welcome new ones. Now, while your tea steeps, I want you to spend your next five minutes meditating on what you want out of the new year. Maybe you’re wondering if this job is the right one for you, or maybe is he the right one for you? I challenge you to consider, are you the right one for you?”</p><p>Hermione rolled her eyes, and Draco tutted disapprovingly. “Come now, Granger, surely you’re used to this by now.”</p><p>“Doesn’t make it any less absurd.”</p><p>“If you hate it so much, why do you do it?”</p><p>“We make more on Divination book sales on the third Thursday than we do the rest of the month. It gets patrons in the building, not to mention a population known to be avid journallers.”</p><p>“Never knew you to be a capitalist,” he said.</p><p>“Just because I think the practice of Divination is a load of bollocks doesn’t mean there isn’t a historical precedent for its application. I’m not advertising for zealots to come in here and perform their prophecy hysterics. But let's not pretend this isn’t just an excuse to drink tea with friends and gab about who you’re dating. If this is what brings patrons in the building and gives them a chance to peruse real books, then I’ll stock Pavarti’s Terrific Teas and Tonics by the till.” She took a breath and paused, fingers tapping out a taboo on the table. “And you don’t know me.”</p><p>Draco’s stomach felt like lead in his belly, but he just nodded and sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, worrying it with his teeth.</p><p>Parvati’s voice resonated around the room. “Now with your silver spoon, stir it two times clockwise, one counter, and rest. No, Phante, like clock hands, there you go.”</p><p>Draco picked up his spoon, and stirred his tea, looking up when he noticed Hermione wasn’t stirring her own. She flushed when he caught her eye and she scoffed, stirring her tea with loud clanks that made the hot water drip over the edge.</p><p>“Gently, Hermione,” Parvati called, and Hermione hunched over, properly scolded. Draco snickered, and she kicked him in the shin.</p><p>“Ow! Watch it, you harpy!” he hissed. Her back straightened, and she looked pleased with herself, placing her spoon on the saucer with dainty hands.</p><p>“Good! Today we have the Parvarti Terrific Teas and Tonics new flavor Kismet Mint-acular. Breathe in the aroma and let it fill your lungs. Test a few fast sips and then take a long drink and let it warm your chest, radiating from your heart, to your center, and perhaps even to your core, amright ladies?”</p><p>A few tittering laughs echoed in the room. Draco openly grinned at Hermione’s scowl.</p><p>“You know, I think I’m feeling it in my center,” he said.</p><p>“Perhaps that’s indigestion.”</p><p>“Definitely not my heart, it’s much too low for that,” he mused.</p><p>“Yes, well, you’d have to have a heart in the first place.”</p><p>He whistled low, took a long sip of his tea. “You’re right, definitely in my center. My heart is still squished under your sensible heels.”</p><p>“You’ve always been so dramatic,” she taunted, but then she nudged his knee with her own. Draco looked up, caught her in the middle of thinking quite hard if that furrowed brow was anything to go by.</p><p>Parvati arrived at their table in a swish of linen skirts. “Why hello, Malfoy, thank you for joining us! And for finally getting our Hermione here to participate.”</p><p>“Oh yes our Hermione just gushed over your teas, and I knew I had to experience them for myself. Just lovely really.” Hermione changed her mind about their friendly knee camaraderie, and she kicked him under the table again. He flinched but maintained a charming smile as he wrestled her foot under the solid press of his loafer.</p><p>Blissfully unaware of the commotion under the table, Parvati nodded her head, agreeing happily. “Oh yes, I’ve been told I have a way with herbs. Now, tell me, what do you see in your leaves?”</p><p>Draco blinked, looked down into his cup. The tea leaves had gathered in piles of sludge. “A bird and uhm, maybe, ah, horns.”</p><p>“Ah yes, on the left I see the ram, Aries. There’s anger in your past. And a peacock, known to represent legacies, but an x next to it, an ending. Hmm, yes,” she mused and patted him on the shoulder. Her hand moved to hold the nape of his neck and his eyes met Hermione’s and widened plaintively. Hers narrowed, her hands gripping her cup so tightly it squeaked under her nails.</p><p>Parvati continued on. “Now on the right, knots, oh ho here in your neck too, and a spiral. Oh honey, you’re stressed, but you're headed towards the creativity you need to reach your sun, do you see it there?”</p><p>Draco reached up and plied her hands off where they were drifting down his shoulders. He took them in one hand and patted them. “Right you are, Parvati. What vision you have.”</p><p>She bowed her head in thanks, then reached for Hermione’s cup. “May I? Oh I see the rabbit and the rose immediately. Good fortune and a change for the better. And a basket. Again a sign of change, but your family may have a new addition. Tell me Hermione, did you feel the tea in your core?”</p><p>Hermione froze, turned scarlet. “Ah no, not quite.” Draco bent his head to his chest to hide his grin.</p><p>“Hmm,” Parvati tapped her chin with one long lacquered nail. “The rose very well could be the symbol for man. I’d go by Slug and Jigger’s and pick up vinegar and shatavari leaves to test for pregnancy if I were you,” she said with a wink at the two of them.</p><p>“PAR-vati!” Hermione screeched. “I think Phante needs your help!”</p><p>Parvati looked across the room and shook her head. “Oh yes, oh dear, they do keep breaking my good china. Ta!”</p><p>Draco watched her go, then turned to Hermione with a shit-eating grin. “Granger, you little tart!”</p><p>“Oh hush! Bunch of bollocks. She can’t very well tell me anything negative when her business relies on my wholesale purchases of her teas. And what was that, comments about your family legacy ending!”</p><p>“Perhaps I’m impotent,” he said with a shrug.</p><p>“I should hope not,” she said with a huff.</p><p>Draco’s smile widened, and Hermione scrambled to place her cup back on its saucer. “I just mean, well, ah-”</p><p>“Calm down, Granger. I’m not impotent, and you’re not pregnant. Let's drink to that.” He held up his cup to hers, and she hesitantly tapped it with her own. In that moment she felt more aware of their odd circumstances, that she should be at a tea leaf reading with Draco Malfoy. The very idea would’ve featured in her nightmares in her Hogwarts days.</p><p>“Anything from the trolley, dears?” Padma said. She pushed the cart to their table, turning to look at Hermione with a coy grin. Draco looked up, perused the cart’s offerings.</p><p>“Never took you for a trolley witch, Patil,” Draco said.</p><p>“Had to take on a second job in this economy. I slave away here for nothing but a few sickles and an occasional knitted sock as though I’m a house elf she’s trying to free instead of a witch with rent to pay,” Padma said with a heavy sigh.</p><p>“Padma,” Hermione growled in warning.</p><p>“Oh dear, shan’t anger the boss. Do try a lemon tart, Malfoy.”</p><p>He smiled politely and accepted a small sandwich cut to look like a starburst, an apple pastry and lemon tart. Padma turned away and shot Hermione a sneaky wink. Hermione just glared back as she watched Padma abandon the cart and go back to her actual job of tending the till.</p><p>When she looked back at Draco, he was already done with the sandwich, moving on to the pastries. Hermione watched him nibble on the treats, found herself noticing the crumb of apple pastry on his full lower lip and how small the pastry looked in his large hand, those long, agile fingers, the same ones that had caught her under the knees and wrapped around her thigh, might’ve crept higher if she’d asked him to in between kisses.</p><p>“I do want to.”</p><p>Hermione jumped, face burning bright. “Hm? What now?” Merlin, if he was a legilimens she’d die on the spot, like a phoenix burnt to a crisp by the flame of their own embarassment.</p><p>He squinted at her and grinned, licked a finger clean. “I want to know you.”</p><p>She froze, eyes squinting and scanning his face for any signs of deception. “What brought this on? We’ve gone three years without any interaction.”</p><p>He waved a finger. “Not true.”</p><p>“I think I’d remember if I’d seen you around, what with the way you’re always dressed like the phantom of the opera.”</p><p>Draco frowned, glanced down at his black button up and slacks. He had draped his winter robe over the arm of his chair. “I can’t win with you. One day my sweater is too casual, the next I’m compared to a ghost of muggle theater. Would you have me in Parvati’s scarves and skirts?”</p><p>“No, no, pink isn’t your color.”</p><p>Draco scoffed. “Any color is my color. But you can’t distract me, Granger. You’ve been mailing me books for a year now.”</p><p>“Oh yes, how could I forget Cycnus,” she drawled, as though she could forget anything.</p><p>“Cycnus has great things to say about you,” he said. He reached for the lemon tart, one of the ones she made, but he didn’t know that. He didn’t know that everyone hated her tarts and that every third Thursday they were left untouched on the treat cart. She held her breath to watch him bite into it. He stilled, lips pursed before he began to chew. He swallowed and took another bite, and she watched in wonder. When he looked up, he caught her staring and began to grin.</p><p>Hermione flushed and pinched her lips together. She looked around the room, sitting up straighter when she noticed a few customers glancing their way. “I don’t understand why you are here. You practically ran out the other night!” she hissed.</p><p>“I did not run. The moment Potter was at the door, you refused to look at me, and I know a dismissal when I see one,” he said dryly.</p><p>“Of course you would since you’ve made a life of dismissing others.”</p><p>Draco hooked an ankle around her chair, and dragged her to him. She gaped at him and crossed her arms tighter over her chest. His legs framed her chair, and he leaned so close she could feel the warmth of him against her shoulder.</p><p>“You’re right, I did. I assumed I was better by no merit of my own other than a legacy name. And I used that to abuse many, including you. I’ve spent the last three years in a cage of my own making, whether it be Azkaban or house arrest or locking myself away from the world where the only thing I allowed myself to look forward to were your notes with every book order.”</p><p>“I was writing to Cycnus,” she murmured.</p><p>“The other day you were emphatic that you knew it was me.”</p><p>“Who else would have an eagle owl?!” she blustered.</p><p>His face softened, and he stopped himself from reaching to tuck a curl behind her ear. When he spoke, his voice was low, worn and reverent. “I pass among the heroes/recently decorated/by the earth and the dust/and behind them, silent,/with your tiny steps,/is it you or not you?/Yesterday when they pulled up/by the roots, to have a look at it,/the old dwarf tree,/I saw you come out looking at me /from the tortured/and thirsty roots.”</p><p>“Draco.”</p><p>He held up a finger. “No, please, it’s my favorite part.”</p><p>She nodded.</p><p>“And when sleep comes/to stretch me out and take me/to my own silence/there is a great white wind/that destroys my sleep/and from it fall leaves,/they fall like knives/upon me, draining me of blood./And each wound has/the shape of your mouth.”</p><p>Her heart pounded in her chest, watching the man who had been a boy she despised. He was made all the more handsome with every word of poetry he spoke, eyes trailing over her face like a caress. He had broadened with age, still lean and tall, but losing the petulant pout. Two blue bruises discolored the space under his eyes, fading to green so that he would have looked very tired if it weren’t for the warmth in his cheeks, the playful quirk at the edge of his mouth. </p><p>“I should like to know you, Hermione. Not as Cycnus.”</p><p>He waited. She watched him in his waiting. His knee began to bounce and he anxiously rubbed his palms on his pantlegs. He worried his bottom lip between his teeth.</p><p>“Look, I understand I’m not the most desirable match out there, Witch Weekly aside, but I don’t usually go quoting Neruda at witches at tea readings. So if you would like me gone, please scream or berate me, anything but this god awful silence.”</p><p>“Look at you, a few minutes of waiting and you’ve already whining,” she teased, but she was beginning to lean into him as well, gravitating towards the warmth of him at her shoulder.</p><p>“Sincerity is new for me, alright?” he huffed, making a show of fixing the cufflinks on his sleeves.</p><p>“If I wasn’t so shocked at you knowing not one, but two Muggle poets, I’d have the space to be charmed by you,” she mused.</p><p>He looked up, suddenly hopeful. “Charmed, eh?”</p><p>“I don’t think I have space on my schedule for it until I close.”</p><p>“And when is that?”</p><p>“Ah, well in about five hours.”</p><p>Around them the participants were clearing their tables, heading towards the handbound journals in happy conversation, though there were a few in desperate need of comforting after their reading.</p><p>Draco smiled, said, “Then I’ll see you in five hours,” and popped the last bite of lemon tart into his mouth.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>References:<br/>Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber<br/>The Earth by Pablo Neruda<br/>https://genius.com/Pablo-neruda-the-earth-annotated</p><p>Comments welcome and much appreciated! It means a lot to me to hear from you all.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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